I can't speak for other atheists, secularists, humanists, etc., but evangelicals are a worry for me. I should also say that I don't think evangelicals are bad people.

My problem is that evangelicals seem to take an inordinate interest in the lives of people who do not believe as they do. It can range from the merely annoying (those who go door to door) to downright frightening (Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, et al). Why is it that evangelicals are so interested in other people's business? I realize that part of evangelizing is telling others about Jesus Christ, but can't we assume that a vast majority have already heard of Jesus and may not want to be told that that they're going to hell unless they accept him as their personal savior?

Or maybe it's not a great idea to insist that Christian morals be legislated. Evangelicals seem to want to control when we can buy alcohol, who can marry whom, what may be watched on television, etc. I have no issue with evangelicals voting with their conscience or speaking their beliefs. However, why must I live by their moral code?

Perhaps I've had more negative experiences with evangelicals than others have. But within the evangelical movement there are some very strident voices who speak with malice and seem to stray greatly from the message of their deity.

I personally don't care what evangelicals do in their homes, in their churches, or in the street. I only wish they would afford me the same respect. Personally, I think it's rude to tell other people that they're going to hell. The evangelical movement as a whole seems to say, "America, you're all going to hell unless you do what we say." Evangelicals don't seem to want to protect what is truly great about the Constitution (an enumeration of rights for individuals) unless those rights are for them to tell others what to do and who to believe in.

I come from an evangelical background. It took several years of agonizing intellectual introspection for me to break away from it, and by the time I was in my second year in college, I felt I had nothing more in common with the Southern Baptist faith that was such a massive influence over my childhood.

I am not as worried about the intrusion into private lives. That's not to say it isn't worth some concern, it's just that this sort of governance is not new, certainly not in American history, and I don't think evangelicals are particularly unique in this respect. I get as pissed as anybody when I hear evangelicals promoting a particular social regulation (making the sale of sex toys illegal, that sort of thing), but all you have to do is look at the pratfalls of hypocritical grandstanding to see that it has a limited force. Ted Haggard and Larry Craig have done more to damage this way of thinking than any progressive has probably ever done. While we're going toe-to-toe with social conservatives in Congress, we can count on the ugly secret lives of evangelical leaders to come out in this information age; they are their own worst enemies.

I'm really more concerned about the overt politicization of religious dogma. Dr. James Kennedy, the recently-deceased pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, was one of the more visible evangelicals in the movement. I occasionally watch his sermons on TBN, and they are little more than political speeches, full of twisted summations of liberal ideals and perversions of evolutionary theory, all exploited to fit his own disturbing view of the world. When religious leaders feel that they can't make many inroads in the political realm, they dig in their heels and turn their congregations into warriors for the movement. The real damage will be done to religion; as the great preacher (and noted Democrat) Billy Graham put it, religion will only divide a congregation; it rarely unites it.

That is what is happening in the religious community right now, I think. You have non-denominational churches, like Lakewood here in Houston, who have a watered-down, mushy, feel-good message that doesn't much resemble the disciplined faith of my upbringing. The Rev. Osteen wants to pack the pews, and he knows he can do it with Tony Robbins-style uplift. This kind of religion is more market-oriented than anything else, and those believers who can't stomach the Kennedy-style conservatism of the rightwing are flocking to it.

On the other side, you have Coral Ridge, Rod Parsley, John Hagee, Bob Jones University, and myriad other ultra-conservatives who are drawing lines in the sand. They are using their bully pulpits to promote a political agenda, and their sermons, full of fire and brimstone, are essentially challenges to their congregants: you either believe this way, and you go forth and act in this manner, or you are excluded from the promise of heaven. And when this happens, law becomes a flimsy obstacle, a minor nuisance, because God's Warriors cannot be held to the laws of man (despite many Biblical passages to the contrary). You see this happening in the Middle East: people who believe they speak for God are tearing the heck out of the social and political fabric of the region, and they feel justified in doing it. Their American counterparts may not resort to such violent tactics, but their doggedness to undermine the much-needed secularism of the American political system could put some of them over the edge.

Hateful if you do not. I am going to walk through a little thought experiment. Assume that you have a friend who has cancer and will absolutely die a horrible death if he doesn't get it treated. This friend is treating his disease with carrot juice and Vitamin E. Would it be rude to point out to him that he would be better served seeing an oncologist?

Christians believe that the saving grace of Jesus will save you from eternal damnation. So telling you that is not rude, it is an act of love.

Now, I will concede you can tell a person that fact in a rude way, without love. And there may be more effective ways of evangelizing that giving a Jonathan Edwards "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" sermon, particularly in this post modern world. But is is not rude to tell the truth.

What I would prefer is an honest, open dialogue in which I have the opportunity to explain why I do not feel any need to be saved from anything. This is a two-way street, in my experience; Christians are as sensitive to perceived attacks on their faith as anyone else may be on theirs. All you have to do is be a political figure who doubts the veracity of Christian doctrine, and you will be dragged through the political mud. That's the real problem: if you don't accept the faith, you are hell-bound. I don't like being associated with Satan. I'm not evil. I just have my own ideas.

Let's try a different experiment.

Let's say you're not a doctor, so you're really not qualified to judge whether a person is sick or not. But you've got this friend, and you think he has MAIDS, say, because he's gay. So you keep going up to him and saying - "Dude! You're going to DIE! You've got MAIDS!!!". And you're friend keeps saying "I'm fine! I went to the doctor, and there's no such thing as MAIDS! Stop telling me I'm going to DIE, you jerk!"

Of course, the absence of any patient ever diagnosed with MAIDS won't stop you, will it?

If the worst evangelicals ever did was lovingly tell us we're going to hell, that'd be annoying, but not dangerous, I suppose (with an exception for children, of course). But that's not the extent of it, is it?

Yeah, in the Christian view, you're hell bound, whether you believe it or not. Just as the hypothetical friend will die from his cancer, even though he thinks he is right. That is the point. He isn't evil, you aren't evil, just mistaken.

been going to a qualified doctor, but the quack herbalist done in Chinatown. And you can tell that that is a malignant melanoma growing right in the middle of his forehead, because you read the American Cancer Society booklet about the 7 warning signs of cancer.

But let's not push analogies too far. Although I can tell you that, pretty much, everyone dies...

If I'm not evil, I should not have to spend an eternity in Hell. Which is why I think the either/or proposition of Christian "free will" (a ludicrous concept, as this thread demonstrates) to be ridiculous.

It's hard to talk about this without resorting to smirking sarcastic posts. I just don't know how else I can tell you to mind your own soul, and let me deal with mine.

If I have to listen to your bunk you have to listen to mine.

Mine's pretty short though. There is no god, but *if* there was I'm sure he'd be pretty offended at a bunch of holy-fools pretending that they know what he thinks.

Ultimately, an individual has the ability to choose the direction he or she goes(free will). However, that doesn't mean that people should necessarily allow one to jump off a cliff without telling repeatedly it's there just because they want to jump off a cliff. The fact that it bothers you that someone may believe your choices aren't the right ones shows that you aren't particularly comfortable with discenting lines of thought. That's frankly normal. In a morally relativistic society though, you are trying to define things as all gray. In a Christian framework, there are moral absolutes. I would suggest that your lack of comfort with these opinions indicates that deep down, you do know that right and wrong, black and white, yes and no clearly exist. If you didn't you wouldn't care what others thought, you would just say, well that is their "truth" and I've got mine. Frankly, Christian or not, we all struggle with these issues on a daily basis. Faith in Christ does not make the issue go away, it just gives the reassurance that when it is finished, our destiny is secured with Christ.

Those who don't believe will have a hard time accepting this post as anything but gibberish. Regardless, we each find our way in our own time and according to the plan that God provides us to follow. We then choose to proceed according to that path or a divergent one. If you haven't read the Book of John, try it. It can be simply an insight to the Christian way of thougth for you. Regardless, it will show why Christians must, because they are called, try to at least inform.

You are making a big mistake mixing the terms evangelicals and conservative fundamentalists. Those of you with little understanding of Christianity often make this mistake particularly the national writers. Actually, the Falwells and Dobsons don't speak for me as a Christian. They are political organizations working to elect Republicans. They are not religious organizations in my mind. They don't like the fact I belong to a mainstream denomination and belittle it.

Rev. Jim Wallis of www.sojo.net once said the term evangelical has been kidnapped by the political based religious fundamentalists

However, that doesn't mean that people should necessarily allow one to jump off a cliff without telling repeatedly it's there just because they want to jump off a cliff. The fact that it bothers you that someone may believe your choices aren't the right ones shows that you aren't particularly comfortable with discenting lines of thought. That's frankly normal. In a morally relativistic society though, you are trying to define things as all gray.

The difference, of course, is that I understand gravity and I've seen cliffs. I have seen nothing of Hell.

event king:

Ultimately, an individual has the ability to choose the direction he or she goes(free will). However, that doesn't mean that people should necessarily allow one to jump off a cliff without telling repeatedly it's there just because they want to jump off a cliff. The fact that it bothers you that someone may believe your choices aren't the right ones shows that you aren't particularly comfortable with discenting lines of thought. That's frankly normal. In a morally relativistic society though, you are trying to define things as all gray. In a Christian framework, there are moral absolutes. I would suggest that your lack of comfort with these opinions indicates that deep down, you do know that right and wrong, black and white, yes and no clearly exist. If you didn't you wouldn't care what others thought, you would just say, well that is their "truth" and I've got mine. Frankly, Christian or not, we all struggle with these issues on a daily basis. Faith in Christ does not make the issue go away, it just gives the reassurance that when it is finished, our destiny is secured with Christ.

Those who don't believe will have a hard time accepting this post as anything but gibberish. Regardless, we each find our way in our own time and according to the plan that God provides us to follow. We then choose to proceed according to that path or a divergent one. If you haven't read the Book of John, try it. It can be simply an insight to the Christian way of thougth for you. Regardless, it will show why Christians must, because they are called, try to at least inform.

Nothing's gray and everything really is black and white? Here's a few examples based on the ten commandments. You tell me if they are black, white or gray:

A man steals to feed his family and has thus broken a commandment "though shalt not steal." He could have let his family starve. What's the bigger crime?

A woman is sexually abused by her father and runs away from home but after she ends up on the streets she realizes she's pregnant. She doesn't abort the child (that would be against God's law, right?) but instead turns to drugs and prostitution and gives birth to a child already addicted to drugs. The child suffers for several months with poor care and little love for her mother before being sent to foster care.

The child is abused by her foster father and ultimately ends up on the streets herself where she suffers and is ultimately beaten to death. Wouldn't it have been better for her not to be born in the first place?

I could make up some other scenarios but my point is that moral absolutes rarely work in the real world. Sometimes the only choices we have are between the lesser of two evils.

To Foole,

Let me guess. You live in a strict, fundamentalist family who won't stop telling you how much you let them down with your attitudes toward their beliefs, am I right? You seem so worried about evangelical Christianity in general and say you wish that you didn't have to live by such a definitive moral code. I'll let you in on a secret. You don't. And more than that, I seriously doubt you really struggle with any of this at all. You live by your own code of ethics and always have. And you always will. And guess what, you have always been free to do just as you please. So perhaps you could just quit pretending that any of this carries any personal weight to you. You live in America. If you don't like anyone else's beliefs, tough. If I don't like yours, trust me, you are perfectly safe within your Constitutional rights, regardless of your families or anyone else's opinions of you...

Aren't there more important things in life to be afraid of? Like, something that's actually doing harm?

You know what I'm afraid of? Debt. Fraudulent Lending. Lawsuits. Hurricanes. And, worst of all, people with facial hair who hate jews, or PWFHWHJ. PWFHWHJ accounted for well over 35 million violent deaths of the 20th century.

Why? Because if you hate one religious group, it's easier to hate other minority groups. I'm deeply wary of people who tell us to fear a group because they believe X. Here is an obvious fact of history: Groups don't matter. Individuals do.

Stop worrying about groups, stop lumping people together and focus your fears on single individuals. Otherwise, you're no better than PWFHWHJ.